


Daughter

by piades



Category: Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Dad!Dick Grayson, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 05:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14826360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piades/pseuds/piades
Summary: It's a thought that sticks to him like lint some days. He has all the family he could ever need, but. Sometimes. Sometimes, he'll be scanning the crowd and realise he's scanning it for faces that look like his.





	Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by two fics: [Morei Shej](https://archiveofourown.org/series/618673) by Dickie_Grayson and [ Second Generation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8332036/chapters/19084837) by lowflyingfruit. As soon as I understood the premise, I wanted to see another take...
> 
> But I have the attention span of a wet squirrel so here's a half-baked plot bun!

Dick’s almost at the grocery store when he smells smoke. He notes the cool — but not cold — weather, the woody smell. It could be a fireplace, but he hasn’t noticed any around here before. It could be something much worse.

He goes to check — it’s a fireplace.

The store is still there when he gets back, and the cafe next to it has adopted a few more patrons. There’s a new family there: a mother, a father, a daughter. His eye catches on them as it passes, noticing the tones of their skin, the shapes of their faces, the texture of their hair and coming up with interracial adoption.

His mind always runs there — to families that have been made like his. The girl could easily be a niece or the child of a friend. She’s familiar, though, and that’s why Dick finds himself walking into the cafe, ordering himself something creamy, and settling back in a booth. He takes out his laptop for something to do with his hands.

The girl stares at him.

Her eyes are dark brown. She bends forward and leans against her father, half-hiding her face in him as she looks at him. She’s probably six years old. Her gaze tries to draw him in, and it frightens him. He looks back to his screen, and realises he’s breathing shallowly.

Who is she?

His vision is tunneling — he can’t keep the family in his peripheral vision but he’s aware that their voices quiet into whispers. And he can’t quite tell what they’re saying. Something in his body is panicking. He hears footsteps, and almost jumps. He looks at the man who stands over his table, and flinches.

“Hello?” he asks.

The man looks down at him uncomfortably. He’s probably in his mid thirties — over ten years Dick’s senior. He seems to be trying to find words to say.

“Do you have a moment?” he asks.

“Yeah?”

The man sits. “I’m wondering if…”

He’s very uncomfortable about something. He puts his head his his hands, and rubbed his face. “I’m sorry. This is very left field. Just. You look quite a lot like my daughter. She wants—I’m wondering if it’s possible that you might be family.”

Dick freezes. 

Family.

He has a family. He’s not ungrateful. He loves them, more than anything, he doesn’t need to replace them! Thoughts of looking for his… biological relatives have only ever been the most distant of fantasies. It would take too much resources. It wasn’t worth it. He had enough family anyway.

“It’s possible?” comes out of Dick’s mouth a bit like a question. He chews on his lip. “I don’t know my biological family. My parents—” parents, plural, always meant Mary and John Grayson. Bruce was his parent. “—well, they haven’t been around since I was small.”

The man heaves out a sigh. He looks over Dick’s face. His eyes rest on Dick’s short black hair. It looks quite a bit like hers. His nose — that looks like hers too. There’s something in her brow that’s so familiar that it makes Dick ache, in a way that makes him feel ill.

“Easy, kid,” the man says, suddenly looking a little alarmed.

“I’m fine, I’m alright,” Dick says. But the fact is—the fact is, there might be a niece over there. He looks at her. She’s looking back. She looks afraid, and curious. She’s holding tightly onto her mother’s hand.

And he’s weeping, isn’t he?

“Dick,” he says, holding out his hand.

“Julian,” says the father. “This is my wife Harriet, and our daughter, Chelsie.”

Chelsie scooted forwards. She watched him, mutely.

“Hello,” Dick says softly. “I’d love to find out,” he said.

He felt sure they were related though. Somehow.

 

They did the tests at a nearby lab.

“A name?”

Dick almost asks to remain anonymous — but Chelsie is within hearing range and to say that aloud feels like a rejection of her. He can’t let her see the results with an anonymous name. And then—

And then they won’t know till tomorrow, anyway.

Dick breathes in shaky breath.

“Will we see you in the morning?” Harriet asks.

“Yeah,” Dick says.

 

The test came back positive. Dick felt his mind blank at the news, like he couldn’t process, couldn’t think. His face was wet. Then, his body was shaking.

“So you’re my DNA’s dad?” came a voice, astonishingly steady and curious.

Dick couldn’t work out how to answer.

“Yes,” said another voice — Harriet’s. Dick felt another hand guiding him to sit down, and lean against something solid. A wall. He hissed quietly.

“Do you need us to call someone?” someone asked.

“No,” Dick said, and his voice stopped. His throat closed for a moment, then cleared. “No. Nothing — nothing’s wrong at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, emotions are hard, man.


End file.
